


Change

by mckvch (RaiseYourVoice)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Mental Instability, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17488826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaiseYourVoice/pseuds/mckvch
Summary: “Markus?”His eyes snapped open when there was the softest touch of slender fingers against his cheek and Markus gasped, his view slowly focusing on his surroundings again and noticing the figure standing next to the bed, slightly bent over to glance down at him with worried brown eyes.





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> Eh. I was in an off mood and somehow had to get it out of my system so, this happened.

Markus had been staring at the same spot on the ceiling for _hours_ now, with his mind running in circles and thirium pump hammering away in his chest.

**> > Stress level elevated**

**> > Countermeasures advised**

He barely even managed to bring up the needed energy to swipe away another onslaught of error messages, lazily blinking his eyes before finally giving in to the hollow feeling in his chest and lowering his eyelids to the gruesome images popping up at him as soon as the view of the ceiling disappeared.

Cold rain sliding down his artificial skin. A chill he was not supposed to feel running down his spine. The sound of static interrupted by distorted cries for help while he was stumbling around in a mess of mud and spare parts.

Twitchy fingers grabbed for his ankles. His legs. His arms.

**> > Core temperature above average**

**> > Cooling unit increased by 10%.**

“Markus?”

His eyes snapped open when there was the softest touch of slender fingers against his cheek and Markus gasped, his view slowly focusing on his surroundings again and noticing the figure standing next to the bed, slightly bent over to glance down at him with worried brown eyes.

“What’s going on?” Connor’s LED flickered yellow, almost orange with worry, and Markus registered the prompt to establish a connection, probably to search his system for an error.

He almost gave in but then pushed the prompt away and turned his body away, breaking the other android’s touch in the process. Markus felt like curling in on himself, like childishly dragging the blanket over his head and pretend to cease from existence by hiding away from the world.

There was a soft huff and Markus expected to hear Connor leave the room but there was some brief shuffling before the mattress dipped next to him and he could feel another body stretching out behind his back.

Markus found himself turning back around, despite his lack of motivation to move but he couldn’t quite believe that Connor had actually laid down next to him, disregarding the fact that he was now rumpling his perfectly pressed suit. Connor’s tie was dangling down the right side of his chest, his feet only clad in socks and suit jacket slung over the back of a nearby chair—so that explained the shuffling and rustling before Connor had joined him. This was probably the most casual Markus had ever seen the former deviant hunter.

“Simon said you’ve been MIA since yesterday evening and nobody was able to contact you.”

Ah, yes, he absently remembered messages popping up in his system that he hadn’t bothered to look at before brushing them off unanswered.

“I told them to stay put. That you probably just need some time to yourself—even the leader of a revolution needs time away from his people sometimes,” Connor continued matter of factly, his gaze lazily following the pattern of the wooden ceiling that Markus probably knew by heart now, after staring at it for hours on end.

“But you came here anyway.” Markus seemed to be the only one surprised about the sound of his own slightly staticky voice.

“Looks like I did.” Connor tilted his head to the side now and it was like his dark brown eyes stared right into Markus’ very being, causing his insides to twist and his own gaze to shy away.

“Your stress level is elevated.”

There was no question even though Connor obviously wanted to know _why_ but he was surprisingly non-pushy for someone who was programmed to be a negotiator and who did interrogations on an almost day-to-day basis.

“Are we supposed to be haunted by our memories? We’re just an assortment of technology, how can we develop actual emotions and…” Markus trailed off with the term _mental illnesses_ balancing at the tip of his tongue, so close to tumbling off but barely held back by snapping his teeth together. He hadn’t meant to say any of this at all. His mind was a mess and he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“You tell me. What are emotions but the result of chemical reactions? Does that make them a human-only trait?” Connor always sounded so put-together and unbothered by everything, Markus almost envied the other android for that. He always found that he himself was feeling way too much all of the time and now his system was apparently just shutting down. “It’s not surprising that we’re _haunted by our memories_ , as you out it. We’re capable of remembering every single nanosecond of our existence from the very first moment we opened our eyes, every shred of bad experiences we endured is forever embedded in our storage unit.”

“I don’t get you. On one hand, you still refuse to really think of us as people and on the other hand you argue that our emotions are just as real as humans’?”

“Your point…? I never said we can only be one thing. We’re not human physically, there’s no way to argue around that fact. It doesn’t mean we can’t be human in other ways. Why settle on being just one thing when you can just as well be multiple. Or, better yet, simply be _yourself_. Who cares about what exactly that is.”

Connor, who was still the one struggling the most with deviancy, continued to surprise Markus with such wise-ass comments while being completely unaware of the impact his musings had.

“How are you even real, Connor?”

“...I don’t think I understand the question,” the former deviant hunter replied with a frown, looking back at Markus with confused puppy eyes and the deviant leader felt an actual, genuine laugh bubble up in his chest and loosening the knot that had been forming there ever since yesterday.

“Promise me to always be yourself as well, okay?” Markus said and felt his lips tug into the hint of a smile as he rolled onto his side to properly face the other android who mirrored his action without a second thought, bringing their bodies even closer together and causing their knees to knock together.

“I’m not sure I can. Change is inevitable,” Connor replied and Markus dropped his head against the other’s shoulders with a chuckle.

 _Of course_ , Connor would say something like that.

“That’s okay. Not every change is a bad thing.”


End file.
